Binz / Rügen Island

Rügen Island is awesome! I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I visited Binz. I pictured a small beach town with a boardwalk, maybe like a smaller shore town in the United States. Binz is totally different though: a cobblestone path along a beach set off by box hedges and shrubs, also lots of restaurants with tables outside under awnings and umbrellas. I felt like I was in some kind of seaside resort town, like where people in books go to recover from consumption. Here’s a picture of the shoreline. The little boxes are wicker beach benches to protect you from the wind. Many hotels provide these for their guests, or they can also be rented. I don’t know how anyone was swimming when I was here. It was freezing! I was bundled up in three layers when I took this picture.The northern end of Rügen Island is famous for these chalk cliffs, which have been painted by all kinds of artists including this painting by Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich.
Here are some photos I took while hiking along them. You can really see how clear the water is. (This is the same place in Friedrich's painting; there's been a lot of erosion since then.)


The water is so transparent that when I was on the long pier in Binz I could hundreds of jellyfish drifting at different depths in the water beneath me. It was so pretty: all these pink stars floating back and forth in the water. Here are some other pictures. I really loved it there.